


Part 30: Justin

by oiuytrewq36



Series: Let's Hear It for the Boy [4]
Category: Queer as Folk (US)
Genre: M/M
Language: English
Status: Completed
Published: 2020-09-20
Updated: 2020-09-20
Packaged: 2021-03-07 21:01:29
Rating: Mature
Warnings: No Archive Warnings Apply
Chapters: 1
Words: 1,658
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/26554021
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/oiuytrewq36/pseuds/oiuytrewq36
Summary: When I open the condo door, a trail of wet footprints behind me, Brian is lying shirtless on the sofa, reading a magazine and smoking (I should call him on it, but I’m not going to). Normally, the little part of me that’s still seventeen and totally unable to believe that this is really my life would swoon at this point, but today has definitely not been normal and I’m not exactly in a swooning mood.“Hey,” Brian says, looking up and then doing a double take when he notices my state of rained-on-ness. “What the fuck happened to you?”
Relationships: Brian Kinney/Justin Taylor (Queer as Folk)
Series: Let's Hear It for the Boy [4]
Series URL: https://archiveofourown.org/series/1928482
Comments: 8
Kudos: 46





	Part 30: Justin

When I open the condo door, a trail of wet footprints behind me, Brian is lying shirtless on the sofa, reading a magazine and smoking (I should call him on it, but I’m not going to). Normally, the little part of me that’s still seventeen and totally unable to believe that this is really my life would swoon at this point, but today has definitely not been normal and I’m not exactly in a swooning mood.

“Hey,” Brian says, looking up and then doing a double take when he notices my state of rained-on-ness. “What the fuck happened to you?”

“Surprise rainstorm on my walk home,” I say, peeling off my wet clothes and leaving them in a puddle next to the door. “I need a shower.”

I’ve just finished adjusting the water when I hear the shower door click open behind me. “I put your stuff in the dryer,” Brian says. He reaches for the shampoo bottle and starts washing my hair. “Rough day?”

_-walking down West 57th, clouds threatening but not open - yet - seeing a mop of curly black hair and an instrument case, shaking off the feeling of having seen a ghost-_

“Yeah,” I say. I don’t want to talk about it, and I think he can tell, because he doesn’t push, just rubs my shoulders and kisses my neck, and I let myself relax into his hands, just a little, trying not to think too hard about my strange afternoon.

_-five minutes later, a voice I hadn’t heard in ten years saying my name, turning, and yes, it is him, what the-_

The doorbell rings as I’m drying my hair, and Brian goes to answer it, saying something about ordering takeout, though I’m not really listening.

_-strange, stilted conversation - “I’m playing with a visiting symphony,” Ethan explains, and I nod and smile politely. “I’ve been seeing your name all over town. Glad to hear you made it big,” cool dark eyes, studying me, but no longer with the power to bore through me, the way they used to-_

Brian has set up the cartons on the coffee table in the living room, an echo of nights past at the loft. I sit down next to him, tear open a chopstick wrapper, and he bumps his shoulder against mine and looks at me, and I try to decide what to say to him.

_-odd goodbye, as well, but maybe there aren’t any other kinds when it comes to old flames; I don’t have enough to know, I guess. Telling him, “take care,” and he says “see you around,” just a hint of the old charm in his voice, and turns and walks away-_

“I saw Ethan today.”

Brian’s voice is even, carefully, painfully neutral. “Oh?”

“I ran into him on the street. He’s playing with some traveling orchestra at Carnegie.”

“Must have been surprising,” Brian says, seemingly casual, but he hasn’t taken his eyes off of me.

“I realized,” I say, and poke at the corner of a carton with one chopstick, wondering whether this is a can of worms I want to open, “that we’ve never” - fuck it - “we’ve never talked about it. Him. Not really.”

“It’s ancient history,” Brian says. He twirls some noodles around his plate, then sets the chopsticks down and turns, cross-legged, to look at me head-on. “Do you want to talk about it?”

“Do you?”

He looks pained, a little, but he says, “Only if you do.” Typical.

I take his hands in mine, because I can’t do this if I’m not touching him, holding him. He looks down at his fingers and back up at me.

“I’m sorry I hurt you,” I say.

“Sorry’s-”

“I know. But I am.”

Brian sighs and laces our fingers together. “You needed something I couldn’t give you then. I wanted you to be happy, and you wouldn’t have been happy if you’d stayed with me, never tried to find out what else was out there. It was what you needed.”

I close my eyes for a moment, just feel the warmth in his hands. Then I open them. “What about what you needed?”

He shrugs. “It wasn’t about me.”

That’s not really true and we both know it, but past experiences tell me that pressing for a better answer will get me nowhere.

Then Brian says, “If- if he hadn’t … cheated on you, or whatever … would we be here?” and I can feel the tension in his body through his fingers, as much as I can tell how hard he’s trying to hide it. 

I wait a moment before answering, because I only have one shot at this and I want to do it right. “I can’t say for sure,” I say, “and you wouldn’t believe me if I did. But what I had with Ethan was- it wasn’t this.”

He tilts his head but doesn’t say anything.

“I loved Ethan, or at least I believed that I did, but it was kid love, safe, normal love, within other people’s boundaries. What I feel for you” - I pause, and he just keeps looking at me with slightly-too-bright eyes - “it scares me, sometimes, how much I want you, and I haven’t always known what to do about it.”

He nods, touching our foreheads together. I know he knows what I mean.

“And Ethan was- self-centered, at times, opinionated, arrogant-”

Brian chuckles. “Well, you certainly have a type.”

I laugh, softly. “But he’d- he made it clear how he felt about the clubs and bars, you know, and so when I did go out I’d feel like I was doing something wrong. Our life was very much centered on him - his friends, his music, the things he liked to do, and I don’t know how he would have reacted if I’d become a success and he didn’t.” I kiss his cheek. “You always push me to be better, stronger, to go further, and you give me the tools to do it when I don’t have them. That’s something I need in my partner, I know that now, and I don’t think Ethan would have provided it for me.”

Nudging a little closer, I tell him, “I’m not scared anymore, Brian. I want what we have, unconventional or not, because I’m happier here, with you, than I ever imagined was possible. I don’t want other people’s normal. I just want you.”

Brian lets go of my hands and puts his arms around me, pulling me close against him until I’m nearly in his lap. I rest my head on his shoulder, listening to his heartbeat through the solid familiar warmth of his body, and breathe him in. He murmurs, “I want you too,” and I cradle his face in my hands and press my body right up against his and kiss him, needy, helpless and messy. 

He moans, and I swallow the sound, wanting more, always more, sucking on his tongue, shoving a hand down the front of his jeans - he’s rock-hard, of course, my perfect, gorgeous sex god, the one thing I’ve never questioned about him and never will, hair tousled and mouth reddened and so beautiful it hurts to look at him, but I’ll never look away. I fall backwards and take him with me, and then we’re stretched out on the carpet, kissing, rubbing up against each other, pulling shirts over our heads, skin on skin on skin, warm and wonderful and right.

We devour each other, slowly, gently, over and over again, for long enough that the food is ice-cold by the time we’ve had our fill of each other’s bodies for the moment. I take out the wires from the cartons and microwave the food on the makeshift plates, and we eat leaning against each other at the kitchen table, laughing and talking and drinking into the night.

“No way,” Brian’s saying. “No _way_. He said he wanted to _stroke you with his bow_?”

He can’t even get through the whole sentence without giggling like a little girl, not that I can really blame him.

I take a bite of a spring roll, trying to stifle my own laughter. “Shut up, it was very romantic.”

“He compared you to a violin!”

“His violin, specifically.”

“I don’t even know what to say to that.”

“You should have seen our breakup fight, though,” I tell him, and he raises his eyebrows while sipping his beer. “The kid he’d fucked brought a bouquet of roses, so I tore them up and threw them at him while screaming about all the promises he’d made me. It was very dramatic. You would have enjoyed it.”

He snorts. “Sounds like the whole affair was the very picture of traditionalist romance through and through.”

“I got what I paid for, that’s for sure,” I say. “What can I say? I was young and stupid.”

Brian takes my hand. “Idealistic, Sunshine, never stupid. I’ve always admired that about you.”

I smile back at him, pull him in for a kiss. “You know I can’t resist you when you go all mushy.”

He makes a face, but then tugs me even closer, kisses my cheek, and feeds me pieces of broccoli off his chopsticks, which I think just proves my point.

“Let’s go out,” I say, once the food’s gone, all the trash cleared away.

He smiles. “I’ll get my jacket.”

We go to Element, as usual, and find a spot right in the middle of the sunken dance floor where we can lose ourselves in each other, letting the bass wash away everything else.

“I love you,” he murmurs, into my hair, and I hold him tighter and kiss his neck. “And I’m glad you’re here with me.”

There are lots of things I could say to that, but he already knows all of them, so we just stay there, moving together, fitting together, and I close my eyes and let the world fall into place around us.

**Author's Note:**

> Chinese takeout boxes do, in fact, fold out into plates if you take out the wires. Justin knows this because it’s the kind of random shit Justin knows.


End file.
